Nowadays, fluorescence microscopes have been widely used as a tool efficient for medical and biological researches. In the fluorescence microscopes, excitation light from a light source is applied to a fluorescent material in a sample to make the fluorescent material emit fluorescence. Then, the fluorescence separated from the excitation light is detected to observe a fluorescence image of the sample. In the fluorescence microscopes, a fluorescent material is used as a fluorescence probe to label various cells or proteins and observe localization thereof.
Further, a laser-scanning type fluorescence microscope has been used (for example, see Patent Documents 1 and 2). The laser-scanning type fluorescence microscope scans and irradiates a sample with laser light to capture a fluorescence image thereof.
A spatial resolution of a general microscope is limited by diffraction limit. Thus, existing microscopes have a problem that once a light wavelength and a numeric aperture are determined, the spatial resolution cannot be increased beyond a certain level.
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-057554
[Patent Document 2]
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-344776